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Recent Print Coverage

Endowment fund The Hackett family set up the Meghan Hackett Young
Professional Endowment Fund with distributions
to be used for the support of Young
Professionals in Dubuque, to hold a symposium
for professional development that inspires,
motivates and builds community leadership, and
to provide funding to support internships for
college students. Gifts to the fund are eligible
for the State of Iowa 20 percent Endow Iowa Tax
Credit. Gifts should indicate they are for
Meghan's fund and be sent to: Community
Foundation of Greater Dubuque, 700 Locust
Street, Suite 195. P.O. Box 902, Dubuque, IA
52001. News You can use

Joseph Michelli knows the prominence of Starbucks Corporation puts
many on edge.

"It is a machine now," he said, noting that six new Starbucks
stores open daily.

Still, Michelli argues a certain amount of credit should be given
to a company that has convinced so many to shell
out $4 for a product only worth a few cents.

"Starbucks doesn't sell coffee, although it looks like it. They
sell what happens above the cup. What is the
value of being able to meet somewhere and not
feel slummed out?" said Michelli, renowned
author and keynote speaker at the first YP
Symposium presented by the Young Professionals
of Dubuque.

The event was held at the Grand River Center on Thursday in memory
of Meghan Hackett. Hackett, project coordinator
for the Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce's
Workforce Development division, died last year
after suffering a brain aneurysm.

The 23-year-old was one of the driving forces in establishing YP
Dubuque and hoped to launch an event like
Thursday's symposium, which attracted nearly 150
young professionals for a day of personal and
professional workshops.

In his speech, "Taking Your Business to the Next Level - Lessons
for Growing People and Profit," Michelli focused
largely on his most recent book, "The Starbucks
Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary
into Extraordinary."

Michelli emphasized that businesses must learn to maintain a focus
outside of their bottom line.

Many, he said, instead adopt an "inside out" model that starkly
contrasts with surveys that have found seven out
of 10 customers say their emotions count for the
majority of their experience with a business.

Thursday's event, sponsored by the Telegraph Herald, also included
the naming of Gina Gallagher as the Young
Professional of the Year.

Gallagher was chosen because of her

efforts to carry out Hackett's plans for the Young Professionals
group.

"The award was meant for someone who embodied Meghan's spirit and
passion for the community," said Wendy Wheelock,
part of the Young Professional's steering
committee.

Jul. 26--LIMA -- There may not be a Starbucks in town, but that
doesn't mean the company can't serve as a model
for local businesses.

Joseph Michelli, a psychologist and author of "The Starbucks
Experience: Five Principles for Turning Ordinary
into Extraordinary," spoke with local business
leaders Wednesday in a workshop sponsored by
Embarq. He discussed those principles and how
the coffee chain grew to a business behemoth,
opening a new franchise somewhere in the world
every four hours by embracing what he calls the
"experiential economy."

"They actually stage the experience of the coffee into an
experience we would call the living room of the
community. That is where the value of their
commodity increases," Michelli said.

Starbucks may not be the first business to sell affordable luxury,
but it's hard to argue they haven't been the
most successful. The Seattle company actually
began as a coffee wholesaler, then one day
Howard Schultz came to work and decided to sell
espresso. The shop's owners felt the machine was
taking up too much space so Schultz quit and
opened a coffee shop across the street. It
wasn't long before Starbucks was up for sale and
Schultz bought it, eventually turning it into
one of the world's largest companies and
providing a lesson to business owners
everywhere.

"Those who are smart see change as an opportunity as opposed to
something to be avoided, that's the lesson,"
Michelli said.

The Starbucks model includes five basic principles: make it your
own; everything matters; surprise and delight;
embrace resistance; and leave your mark. The
truly successful business owner incorporates the
five to take basic customer service to a whole
new level.

"Customers are not just customers, they become customer
evangelists," Michelli said. "You can buy
advertising. An ad is the promise you make to
your customer. Word of mouth is that promise
delivered."

While most companies believe they provide superior customer
service, most don't, Michelli said. In fact, 80
percent of companies, when polled, said they
provided a superior customer experience, but
just 8 percent of customers said they have
received such an experience.

"We think we're doing it well because we make our businesses more
efficient and we think that somehow helps
customers," he said. "Too many businesses focus
on themselves instead of taking the time to
listen to their customers."

In the end, the truest measure of a company is its contribution to
community. Good companies not only make money
and provide jobs, they give back to the
community in real and substantive ways.

"It's not enough to do well in business, you've got to do good," he
said. "You can do well and do good at the same
time."

You can comment on this story at
www.limaohio.com. Copyright (c) 2007, The
Lima News, Ohio

This is an inspirational rather than instructional read. It offers
an insight into the success factors behind the
Starbucks brand and business with strong
emphasis on people management policies - through
anecdotes gathered by the author from customers
and partners (the term used for Starbucks'
employees). Michelli provides analysis through
his definition and exploration of the five
principles that have turned "ordinary into
extraordinary" at Starbucks, and there are ideas
and action points sprinkled throughout the book.
However, they are quite general and more often
than not provide food for thought rather than
tangible steps for achieving the
"extraordinary".

Although potentially frustrating for anyone looking to understand
the nuts and bolts of the Starbucks business,
this book is for people interested in the power
of corporate culture and the role that people
management policies play in creating a
motivating work environment.

Reward and empowerment are recurring themes: for example,
Starbucks' founder Howard Schultz's decision to
share stock options with all partners working 20
hours a week or more, rather than just senior
management, is one of the leadership decisions
designed to create "a culture in which employees
can soar".

This "shared gain" approach makes profitability an acceptable
motivator and Michelli says partners are given
the training and knowledge and empowered to
create a customer experience that brings people
back. He points out that Starbucks consistently
spends more on training than on advertising,
which leads to high staff-retention levels, and
therefore consistent customer service and
relationships.

Impact on customer satisfaction

There are anecdotes from satisfied customers throughout the book.
There's the customer in Bangkok who hadn't
visited Starbucks for two months, yet on his
return one of the baristas remembered his order.
There's the overwhelmed customer who was having
a bad day and was given a special coffee blend
on the house. She subsequently sent flowers and
became a regular.

If this all sounds a bit Utopian, Michelli does touch on the
challenges that Starbucks faced along the way.
For example, Starbucks struggled with finding
strategies to engage its partners passionately
and to combine individual differences into a
uniform customer experience. The solution is in
the principle "Making it your own," and the
"Five ways of being" structure, with the latter
guiding partners to be welcoming, genuine,
considerate, knowledgeable and involved.

The focus is on helping individuals to create a good customer
experience in their own way, rather than setting
rigid rules. These examples make this an
enjoyable and helpful read for anyone in the
people management business.

"THIS BOOK IS FOR PEOPLE INTERESTED IN THE POWER
OF CORPORATE CULTURE."

The
Starbucks experience was in the spotlight as Retail City
Conference opened today. Retail City, the region’s largest
international retail real estate event, opened with
acclaimed US business psychologist and author of ‘The
Starbucks Experience’, Dr Joseph Michelli, delivering the
international keynote address at this year’s Retail City
Conference.

Dr
Michelli shared his invaluable research and experience into
how Starbucks has become one of the most recognised and the
largest chain of coffee shops in the world today.

Explaining that the Starbuck’s principle can be applied
successfully to any retail business, Dr Michelli recognised
five distinct principles (Make it your own; Everything
matters; Surprise and delight; Embrace resistance; Leave
your mark) that, if implemented, can transform a company
from the inside out.

It
is difficult to argue with an organisation with 11,000
outlets in 37 countries, that pours coffee from a new outlet
every four hours and each $1 invested in 1992 would be worth
$65 today.

However the secret behind their success is that their staff
turnover rate is 60 per cent per annum against the industry
average of 200 per cent or more.

That loyalty is echoed by their customer retention. An
average Starbucks customer makes 18 visits per month.

'The Starbucks Experience reflects principles that are
simple, yet not simplistic,” said Michelli.

“They are results-oriented and can be deceptively powerful
when applied.

“A
typical Starbucks customer like me would drink two coffees
per day at say $6 per day.

“That works out at $2, 190 per annum, which over 35 years is
$76,650.

“Businesses should look at the power of customer retention
in this way, not just one item or in this case one coffee.

“The distinct lack of rules, are replaced by suggestions,
goals, and the empowerment to make every customer’s
experience a memorable.

“Throughout the Middle East a retail revolution is taking
place with the retail sector currently valued at $100
billion.

“Retail is second only to residential property in the
non-oil economy and Sheikh Sultan bin Sulayem, head of Dubai
Ports World, commented at the opening: “The retail sector is
vital to the growth of Dubai and we will continue to support
events such as Retail City.”

The
show will also feature the prestigious Retail City Awards,
which recognise excellence and innovation throughout the
industry, acknowledging outstanding achievements.

The
awards will be presented during a glittering gala dinner at
The Fairmont Hotel, Dubai.

Retail City 2007 project manager Naomi Koningen said:

“Retail is rapidly expanding, but more importantly, it is
sustainable.

“With 68 million visitors expected to visit the region by
2020 and population growth estimated to hit 50 million
during the same period, retail has a long way to go before
reaching saturation levels.” TradeArabia
News Service

Retail
City, the region's largest international retail real estate event,
opened on 3 June 2007 with acclaimed U.S. business psychologist and
author of 'The Starbucks Experience', Dr. Joseph Michelli,
delivering the international keynote address at this year's Retail
City Conference. Dr. Michelli shared his invaluable research and
experience into how Starbucks has become one of the most recognised
and the largest chain of coffee shops in the world today.

Explaining that the Starbuck's principle can be applied successfully
to any retail business, Dr. Michelli recognised five distinct
principles (Make it your own; Everything matters; Surprise and
delight; Embrace resistance; Leave your mark) that, if implemented,
can transform a company from the inside out.

It is
difficult to argue with an organisation with 11,000 outlets in 37
countries, that pours coffee from a new outlet every four hours and
each US$ 1 invested in 1992 would be worth US$ 65 today. However the
secret behind their success is that their staff turnover rate is 60
per cent per annum against the industry average of 200 per cent or
more. That loyalty is echoed by their customer retention. An average
Starbucks customer makes 18 visits per month.

"The
Starbucks Experience reflects principles that are simple, yet not
simplistic. They are results-oriented and can be deceptively
powerful when applied. A typical Starbucks customer like me would
drink two coffees per day at say US$ 6 per day. That works out at
US$ 2, 190 per annum, which over 35 years is US$ 76,650. Businesses
should look at the power of customer retention in this way, not just
one item or in this case one coffee," said Michelli.

Starbucks' miniature employee handbook 'The Green Apron' may go
someway to explaining this. The distinct lack of rules, are replaced
by suggestions, goals, and the empowerment to make every customer's
experience a memorable.

Throughout the Middle East a retail revolution is taking place with
the retail sector currently valued at US$ 100 billion. Retail is
second only to residential property in the non-oil economy and HE
Sheikh Sultan bin Sulayem, Head of Dubai Ports World, commented at
the opening, "The retail sector is vital to the growth of Dubai and
we will continue to support events such as Retail City." The show will also feature the prestigious Retail City Awards, which
recognise excellence and innovation throughout the industry,
acknowledging outstanding achievements. The awards will be presented
on Monday night during a glittering gala dinner at The Fairmont
Hotel, Dubai.

Naomi
Koningen, Project Manager, Retail City 2007 commented, "Retail is
rapidly expanding, but more importantly, it is sustainable. With 68
million visitors expected to visit the region by 2020 and population
growth estimated to hit 50 million during the same period, retail
has a long way to go before reaching saturation levels."

Book Review:The Starbucks Experience
Joseph Michelli’s new book gives readers a unique insight into one
of America’s strongest brands and it got here. By Fred Minnick

There have been several books written about Starbucks, but none are
more practical for the restaurant operator than The Starbucks
Experience (McGraw Hill, $21.95) by Joseph Michelli.

Although the manuscript was read by Starbucks officials before
publication, the well-written business book objectively illustrates
how the coffeehouse turned ordinary into extraordinary. The
Starbucks Experience should be required reading for any operator who
hopes to emulate the chain’s 13,000 locations around the globe or
annual sales of $7.8 billion (Starbucks 2006 figures).

Says the Library Journal: “Readers will discover a rich mix of ideas
and techniques that will help them apply the Starbucks vision,
creativity, and leadership to their own careers, workplaces, and
companies. Michelli shares fascinating information.”

Great Employees Make the DifferenceThe Starbucks name is synonymous with coffee. Forty millions
customers visit each week and the most loyal customer visits “their”
Starbucks store 18 times per month. Employee turnover is 250 percent
lower than the industry average. That’s not an accident.

“Legendary service comes from a genuine desire and effort to exceed
what the customer expects,” Michelli writes. “Repeatedly, customers
have shared experiences of Starbucks partners doing the
extraordinary—making a connection well beyond some formulaic
greeting.”

“One of the reasons that Starbucks employees are often so pleasant
and helpful is that Starbucks is a great company to work for,” says
Starbucks partner Joy Wilson in The Starbucks Experience. “It takes
care of employees and treats us with respect. That mind-set trickles
down from the executives to the thousands of baristas worldwide.”

According to the book, leaders create a unique culture for employees
in which empowerment, entrepreneurship, quality, and service define
the values. As an example of this leadership style, Michelli
recounts how when employees brought up the lack of paid leave for
adoptive parents, Starbucks leadership responded by providing this
parent group a two-week benefit.

“If leaders expect staff to meet and exceed the expectations of
their customers, those same leaders must respond to concerns and
exceed expectations on behalf of their staff,” Michelli writes.

Joseph Michelli

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that
Starbucks offers stock programs, retirement plans, and healthcare
benefits for its employees. Its formal training program empowers
partners to help customers appreciate the fresh, high-quality coffee
profiles and educates them to understand coffee-growing regions. As
if they needed anymore convincing about the quality of their brand,
employees are given one pound of free coffee a week.

Good Environment

The Starbucks Experience allows
you to be Howard Schultz, former chief executive, and other
executives for a moment and understand the interior design, soft
suede couches, and the slow music, and grasp how these amenities
complement the brand. The book also makes you appreciate every
detail and how they offer a competitive advantage by building
intense loyalty among patrons.

“Starbucks could very well operate
without even selling coffee,” says customer Devin Page in the book.
“They could charge an entrance fee and offer nothing else but a room
and mellow Bob Marley music softly playing in the background, and
people would still come.”

Embrace Resistance

Few companies have had more damaging
rumors spread about them than Starbucks. The world’s largest
coffeehouse is often a target for anti-corporate culture.

In 2004, an email floated the vast and
never-ending internet saying Starbucks did not support the war,
soldiers, and that it won’t send servicemen coffee. (In fact,
Starbucks stores sent troops the coffee long before this damaging
email surfaced.) Suddenly, Starbucks had a major image crisis on its
hands.

The Starbucks Experience should
be required reading for any operator who hopes to emulate the
chain’s 13,000 locations around the globe or annual sales of $7.8
billion.”

In The Starbucks Experience,
Michelli uses that episode to illustrate the system Starbucks has in
place to handle public relations issues. In the end, Starbucks was
able to use the incident to its advantage by bringing attention to
its philanthropic donations.

“The reputation of a business or brand
can be seriously affected by rumors, half-truths, and
misinformation,” Michelli writes. “Before errant information gains
momentum, leaders urgently need to find ways to communicate the
whole truth to set the record straight.”

The
experience continues

S Lakshmi
Chopra / New Delhi April 04,
2007

Reading The Starbucks
Experience is a bit like
riding the old manually operated
giant wheel. The speed and sense
of adventure doesn’t compare
with the latest mechanised
roller coasters, but the little
joys and pleasures such as
waving to people as you go up
and down the manual giant wheel
are quite different. The
Starbucks Experience, just
like the manually operated giant
wheel, has a slow start, and as
you navigate through the five
principles that the book is
built on, you experience the
little anecdotes based on simple
pleasures and joys that both
employees and customers have
experienced during their
associations with Starbucks.

It must be said, though,
that the book’s central premise
is quite the opposite of the
internal memo sent by Starbucks’
Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz
that reportedly raised issues of
how the Starbucks experience
had been watered down over the
years. The memo was recently
leaked in a website and sent
Starbucks’ stocks down.

In the book, Joseph A
Michelli is convinced that the
company’s “phenomenal success”
stems from its generous HR
policies and lively work
environment, its attention to
detail and genuine concern for
social causes. And, to
demonstrate this, the author
uses real-life stories of
Starbucks customers and partners
(read: employees) to explain the
five principles that he has
derived and according to him,
these are the tenets that have
driven Starbucks’ “phenomenal
success”. The five “simple, yet
not simplistic” tenets that he
derives are: make it your own;
everything that matters;
surprise and delight; embrace
resistance; and leave your mark.

In his exploration, Michelli
first stops at the Green Apron
Book that Starbucks management
developed as a pamphlet that
would fit neatly into a
partner’s apron pocket.
Innovatively developed, the book
offers five ways of be-ing—be
welcoming, be genuine, be
considerate, be knowledgeable
and be involved with the
customer. This is surely
something that is applicable to
most businesses, particularly
those in the service industry
even if the “partners”’ do not
don the green apron.

The book is short enough to
finish in one sitting, but it is
definitely not easy to digest
the contents in one go. For, in
some places, the author’s tenets
tend to become a little vague.
For example, in its attempt to
delight customers, the company
distributed books on poetry
written by authors from the
places where coffee comes
from—Indonesia, Africa and Latin
America for Starbucks. This may
not have to be taken so
literally. For, some things are
just meant to be in the
background. They silently
assist; they draw no attention
to themselves per se.

There are also many
narratives that just seem too
good to be true. For example, a
tea drinker in Michigan goes to
Starbucks to have her tea,
because for her it is the
company’s value systems that
matters more.

Throughout the book, the
author provides several
questions to consider under the
heading “create your own
experience” and tips in the form
of “ideas to sip on”. Certainly,
customer experience is
determined more by the people
who develop the product or the
service, and those who represent
the same in the market. Michelli
urges the reader to distil the
Starbucks experience into a
single sentence and then ponder
why that has led to the
company’s success.

Truly, the essence of
Starbucks is Howard Schultz’s
leadership. He is known to be
hanging out at two dozen stores
a week. He pulls a hat over his
eyes and puts on a pair of jeans
and hopes he isn’t recognised.
Often he is; still, it is very
different from knowing that
Howard Schultz is coming to your
store with an entourage of
fifteen executives from Seattle.

The company just seems to
have grown along with its
partners and customers. From
building drive-throughs for
customers who do not have the
time to sit and experience the
coffee, to building packages
that kept the coffee powder
fresh came from customers who
pointed out these little nuances
to the respective store
managers.

Before he closes, Michelli
points to the most sensitive
topic of today—how to embrace
criticism. While a negative
column posted by a journalist is
usually dismissed as the opinion
of an angry journalist, the
management of Starbucks
willingly participated in a
candid self-exploration in
response to the column.

The to-do list given by the
author towards the end of the
book, perhaps, best summarises
the whole Starbucks Experience
for us. The company’s management
practices are undeniably
innovative and inspiring. Even
if most of them aren’t directly
relevant, there’s surely
something in this book that’s
applicable to most businesses
today. But, going back to the
memo, how do you explain the
contradiction between it and
what the book says? Only Shultz
can answer that.

Book ReviewApril, 2007The Starbucks Experience

Book Review

by Robbi Hess

Running a profitable enterprise is certainly
a laudable-and necessary-goal of any
business owner, but embracing diversity and
creating a great work environment should be
part of the guiding principles as well. In
Jospeh Michelli's The Starbucks
Experience: 5 Principles for Turning
Ordinary into Extraordinary,
Jim Alling, president, Starbucks U.S.
explains, "profitability is essential to our
success, but it's not the first item on the
list..."

Michelli, an outsider to the Starbucks
industry, offers readers a look inside the
boardroom strategies, employee motivation
tips, community involvement, and customer
satisfaction served up by the coffee giant.
He offers a "full-bodied" experience that
pays off for the readers and serves up tips
for a perfect business model.

The author's two-year odyssey into the inner
workings of Starbucks began with a call to
the customer service number on the back of
his Starbucks card. His persistence pays off
for readers who want to know more about the
inner workings of the company that opens
five new stores a day, 365 days a year, and
for business owners looking to imitate some
of the company's successful strategies.
Starbucks also boasts an employee turnover
rate that is 250% lower than the industry
average. And every small business owner
knows the time and effort that goes into not
only recruiting, but the hiring and training
of a new employee.

This book is for anyone who has stood in
line at a Starbucks and wondered "how do
they do that?" "That" being the ability to
draw in consumers all day everyday with only
the promise of a cup of coffee? As Michelli
found in his research and conversations with
Starbucks officials, it all starts with the
employees-leadership must focus on creating
a culture in which employees can soar. Their
enthusiasm carries over to the experience
your customers enjoy, whether you sell
widgets, coffee, paper goods, or consulting
services. While no manager can change an
employees' individuality, they can infuse
their work experience with what Michelli
explains as the "Five Ways of Being"-Be:
welcoming, genuine, considerate,
knowledgeable, and involved.

Your business may not offer a storefront in
which your customers can stop in to enjoy
the "Starbucks experience"-a concept that
signifies offering customers a "comfortable
setting, where they are valued on a personal
level and where a meaningful connection is
made." Regardless of the setting of your
business, your company should strive to give
your customer-or potential customer-a
positive experience.

Michelli-via Starbucks-urges entrepreneurs
to create their own experience by finding
ways for their business to leave a powerful
mark, whether through volunteerism,
community grants, or by a more overarching
commitment to examining the impact of their
business practices. Consider ways in which
your might incorporate social responsibility
into your business.

While your business will likely need to
tailor the Starbucks framework to its own
particular niche, ask yourself, "What can I
learn from a company like Starbucks?" The
answer might infuse your own organization
with fresh-brewed life in fostering a
culture that embraces customer loyalty,
rewards faithful employees, and offers an
opportunity to make a difference in the
world.

Starbucks author to address Retail City
Dubai : Mon,
26 Mar 2007

Acclaimed US business psychologist and author of 'The
Starbucks Experience', Dr Joseph Michelli, will deliver the
keynote address at the Retail City conference in Dubai.

Dr Michelli will share his invaluable research and
experience into how Starbucks has become one of the most
recognised international brands and largest chain of coffee
shops in the world today.

The Retail City is set to take place at the Dubai
International Exhibition Centre (DIEC) from June 3 to 5,
2007.

'The fact that Dr Michelli has agreed to deliver the
keynote at our conference, is a clear testimony to the
strength of our own brand. His extraordinary insight into
Starbucks' success story will be invaluable,' said project
manager, Retail City 2007, Naomi Koningen.

During his presentation 'The Ultimate Customer
Experience', Dr Michelli will recognise five distinct
principles (Make it your own; Everything matters; Surprise
and delight; Embrace resistance; Leave your mark) that, if
implemented, can transform a company (or an individual) from
the inside out.

Four dedicated pre and post conference workshops will go
in depth examining, 'Keeping Customers For Life'; 'Retail
Finance And Investment'; 'The Third Place' and 'Successful
Planning And Development Of Shopping Malls'

The show will also feature the prestigious Retail City
Awards, which recognise excellence and innovation throughout
the industry, acknowledging outstanding achievements. The
awards will be presented during a glittering gala dinner at
The Fairmont Hotel, Dubai.TradeArabia News Service

In the wake of the Starbucks "Memo Shot Round the World" from
Chairman Howard Shultz on the looming commoditization of its
brand, we asked the experts how they would restore the mythical
Starbucks Experience.

Here's what Joseph Michelli, author of "The Starbucks
Experience: Five Principles for Turning Ordinary into
Extraordinary," had to say: "They can make sure the sensory
experience at Starbucks is rich" by bringing back coffee aromas
with fresh grinding and reinforcing the notion of affordable
luxury by making sure knowledgeable baristas French-press
coffee. It also means nixing plastic chairs and bringing back
the living-room feel. "It is all the details of the physical
environment."

Seth Godin, author of "Small is the New Big" said, "They have
to bring the audience with them as they move the masses back to
authenticity," starting with "fixing the coffee and figuring out
how to sell something you can eat." He said the bigger question
is: "Should Starbucks be willing to take a short-term stock and
market-share hit in order to return to its authenticity?" When
it comes to brands, "shareholders, in the long run, are always
wrong," he said, adding: "In order to be big, they have to give
up stuff."

Mark Gobe, chairman-CEO of Desgrippes Gobe and author of "BrandJam:
Humanizing the Brand Through Emotional Design":

Starbucks should ask its consumers why they went there in the
first place and what is missing now, he said. The chain needs to
decide whether it is mass or luxury mass. "Brands have to find
their limitations. ... You have to know where you're going to
disconnect from consumers."

Bob Goldin, exec VP of food consultant Technomic:

"The company needs to better understand how the customer point
of view has changed" in the past decade. While he isn't
convinced McDonald's will supplant Starbucks as the place for
Gen Y consumers to park their laptops on a Saturday night ("That
place smells like french fries"), he does agree Starbucks needs
to make "significant improvements" to its food program,
including managing its ubiquity and push for turning out
specialty beverages at a rapid pace.

Larry Wu, VP-consumer strategist food and beverage,
Iconoculture:

Of all the experts we polled, perhaps Mr. Wu knows the brand
best. A former director of research and development for
Starbucks, he said, "It used to be about great service,
knowledgeable expertise and love of coffee. Now it's about love
of profit, margin and growth." He said stores are too small and
understaffed: "That's why [baristas] make shortcuts now." The
chain "should look at capacity instead of just speed." Finally,
he said, Starbucks "should pull back on the food and make coffee
the core again."

David Aaker, VP of Prophet and professor of marketing at
University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business:

"This is a portfolio problem. Once you get into supermarkets,
it's not easy to pull back." But he said it's possible. "One
option would be to create a sub-brand for an upscale Starbucks."
It's an idea much like the Hallmark Gold Crown concept, where
the chain could create an experience around the original
Starbucks for customers who want that level of service vs. the
grab-and-go business the company has developed.

Bryant Simon, professor of history and director of American
studies at Temple University, who visited 400 locations to
research his coming book, "Consuming Starbucks":

"There's no reason not to put a semi-automated machine in the
drive-thru," and then push its notion of authenticity and coffee
theater in its flagship stores. "Give up some of the volume and,
like Nike, make it a [showroom] store about coffee."

To speed service, Starbucks added flavor-locked packaging that
killed the fresh-ground-coffee aroma, not to mention the sound
of beans being scooped and ground onsite.

Trying to do it all created an identity crisis: Is Starbucks
mass or mass luxury? Are customers hooked on the caffeine, the
convenience or the circus?

Once a cozy respite from reality, it traded in comfy chairs for
plastic, and every square inch is selling products, such as
games, instead of an authentic coffee experience.

Starbucks went for ubiquity over uniqueness, at the airport,
the grocery store, the hotel, on every corner. Omnipresence =
common.

Who has time to French-press a steaming cup when there's a line
out the door for multi-syllabic beverage orders, egg sandwiches,
gift cards and movies?

Fighting fast food by adding prepackaged deli foods and day-old
pastries flies in the face of its café culture.

The $6 billion gorillaby Peter Romeo

Espresso, historians tell us, was given to the world by
Italians in the early 20th century. It would take a quirky
Seattle retailer with New Age proclivities to move it into
storefronts, malls, airports and book stores - not to mention
bowling alleys, gyms, the concession areas of gas stations,
parent-teacher nights, baseball stadiums, the nearest 7-Eleven,
Aunt Susan's dinner party, restaurants and several major
quick-service chains. Wherever consumers gather today, chances
are they'll have access to a freshly made espresso or its fellow
travelers, the latte, the cappuccino or the straight cup of
premium.

Coffee geeks equate that near-universal availability of
high-caliber brew to America's virtual changeover from
mild-tasting robusta beans to the darker-roasted, more complex
arabica variety. The more reasonably caffeinated recognize it as
the Starbucks Effect.

That's not to say the effect is limited to Starbucks anymore.
What started as a stall in the Pike Place greenmarket in Seattle
has grown into a money machine with unit sales growing
year-over-year in high single-digit jumps, to a systemwide
intake expected to top the $6.1 billion mark for 2006.

Seeing that proof of alchemy, eating places of all stripes have
been quick to synthesize their own versions of Starbucks'
coffee. Consumers yearning for a high-quality caffeine fix can
readily find it today at Dunkin' Donuts, Jack in the Box, Burger
King, Shari's, 7-Eleven and McDonald's. And those are merely the
places that have added topspin to the effect in recent months.

But just as the effect no longer stops at Starbucks, by all
appearances it extends beyond the chain's signature product as
well. "It's not just about having a good cup of coffee anymore,"
says Joseph Michelli, author of the book, "The Starbucks
Experience." "It's about having the right music, the right
lights, the right design, the ambiance, the service, the whole
package."

In that respect, he and others attest with church-revival zeal,
the brand remains the sterling standard to which other
businesses aspire. Coffee choices may abound, Michelli says, but
"Starbucks enjoys 97-percent unaided brand recognition, and 18
visits a month from a typical customer. No other brand could put
a store across the street from another unit and have them both
do well. It's almost an evangelical brand."

The reason, enthusiasts are quick to note, is an influence that
goes well beyond the restaurant industry, to American life and
business in general. They note how the brainchild of three
bookish coffee fanatics has up-ended conventional thinking about
employment practices and the role of restaurants in present-day
society.

"A key concept for the brand is the idea of the `third place,'
" says John Simmons, who studied the phenomenon in his book, "My
Sister was a Barista: How They Made Starbucks a Home Away from
Home."

He refers to the assertion of some sociologists that people
want an alternative in their lives to the places where they work
and live, a third locale that incorporates elements of the other
two but offers a distinct experience. "People working in an
office say, `Let's go out of the office and have our meeting in
a Starbucks,'" Simmons says. "Or someone might buy a coffee and
sit there to get out of the house. It's been absolutely key to
their business success."

"There was a case in the New York area of a guy who brought a
desktop computer into a Starbucks - not a laptop, a full-sized
computer - and stayed there all day," Michelli says. "I know of
pastors who don't even have their own churches who go to a
Starbucks to be with their congregations. It's the new town
square, the living room of the community."

The distinction has not gone unnoticed by other foodservice
brands. McDonald's currently is retrofitting units with a new
design that includes a "linger zone," where youngsters can sink
into cushy armchairs and sofas while using a wireless Internet
connection to send instant messages and surf the Web.

Panera Bread Co. attributes its head-turning success in part to
what executives have termed "hangout time" or "a gathering-place
solution." Translation: The concept strives to conjure that
third-place sensibility that Starbucks has made a part of its
DNA. Customers stop by in the afternoons for a break from work
or to delay facing the rigors of home life.

Copying Starbucks has become as common in the restaurant
industry as hot-cup sleeves and serve-yourself milk and
sweetener stations. After the company started selling music CDs
at its service counters - and subsequently changed some artists'
and music labels' distribution strategies - a number of other
concepts gave music retailing a try, sensing a big opportunity.
Among them was McDonald's, which wasn't exactly lacking in
capital, marketing power, operations know-how, research or any
other ingredient of a successful business launch. Yet it pulled
the plug on its in-store CD-burning venture in a matter of
months.

Few competitors have since followed Starbucks' lead in selling
books and movies at their walk-up counters.

"In my opinion, others attempt to imitate specific elements of
Starbucks without the ability to create the overall Starbucks
experience," Jim Alling, president of Starbucks' 8,500-store
domestic operation, says in an e-mail response to submitted
questions.

The reason why the copycats fail, says former Starbucks
marketing executive John Moore, is evident to anyone who has
worked there.

"Companies can replicate its products and systems," Moore says
of his previous employer. "But they can't clone the people, and
the people are the difference."

After leaving Starbucks to join Whole Foods, the natural-foods
retailing chain, Moore tried to capture what was different about
working at the coffee company. He wrote a book specifically on
its employee culture, entitled, "Tribal Knowledge: Business
Wisdom Brewed from the Grounds of Starbucks Corporate Culture."

"It's different because you're at a company that cares, that
genuinely, truly cares," he says. "They have a clear mission,
which is to change the way people drink coffee. You believe that
making money is a byproduct."

Michelli either has swallowed the same hook or arrived at the
identical conclusion independently.

"The leadership at Starbucks really cares about the people," he
says. "It's in the quick-service restaurant market, which had
been merely transactional in nature. There really was not much
service to that world. Starbucks comes along, hires people who
might have ended up behind a counter at one of those places and
says to them: `You could do something different. You could
become an expert on what you sell. You could help make a
difference in their day.' "

Oh, yeah, he adds, "they also offer a good benefits package,
with health coverage if you work 20 hours or more a week, and
stock options."

He and others trace that employee-centric mind-set to Howard
Schultz, the one-time New Yorker who, reminiscent of Ray Kroc
and McDonald's, first noticed Starbucks because it was buying so
much of the beverage-making apparatus he was selling at the
time. As a boy, Schultz watched his family slip into poverty
after his father, a driver for a diaper delivery service, was
injured on the job. He had no benefits, leaving the family
without an income or any way to pay his medical bills.

Even as a kid, Schultz writes in his autobiography, "Pour Your
Heart Into It," "I knew in my heart that if I was ever in a
position where I could make a difference, I wouldn't leave
people behind."

He saw an opportunity to indulge that yearning when he joined
Starbucks at the four-unit mark. It had been founded a decade
earlier by English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Ziev
Siegel and writer Gordon Bowker, who initially declined to hire
Schultz because they feared his go-go style would change their
painstakingly nurtured culture. But he prevailed, subsequently
codifying the personnel attitude that observers say is still
evident within the company's present management.

"They take better care of their employees than they do their
guests," Moore says, "and it's the employee who delivers the
experience to the guest. So the employee ends up giving the
guest a good experience."

Indeed, he says, "their greatest challenge moving forward is
not finding the right locations, it's finding the right people
to put behind the counter."

By automating functions formerly performed by a barista, he
says, the brand might have muted some of its flavor. "The
automation has given Starbucks the power to have less
charismatic employees," he says.

Moore wonders if concessions to the times and the company's
size will temper the brashness that made Starbucks such a
much-copied innovator. "Even in the 1990s, they were doing
things that just weren't done. They took chances," he says.
"Now, because it's so big, it's more a matter of risk being
tolerated."

Not so, Alling insists in his e-mail. "Starbucks has a culture
of innovation," he writes. "We also know that our customers look
to us to introduce them to new favorite things, whether that be
a new espresso beverage, a new food item, or a new CD or book."

Michelli rattles off Starbucks' past mistakes: Publishing a
magazine called Joe. Adding an effervescent coffee, "probably
the worst thing to ever happen to coffee." Introducing a
super-rich hot chocolate drink that started in tests as
Chocofino, and ended up being introduced as Chantico - "a
failure."

"They stumbled and they fell and they failed," he says. "But
they learned."

The resulting success, he says, has shaped Starbucks into far
more than a brand with a phenomenal market share.

"It has become part of the very fabric of our society,"
Michelli says.

Starbucks experience more than caffe lattes

By JOHN STANCAVAGE World Business Editor
2/11/2007

Although I'm not a coffee person, I'm married to one. This means
frequent trips to Starbucks.

Usually, if my wife is going into a store where I'm not
interested in the primary product (cosmetics retailers, for
instance), I'll stay in the car.

But not at Starbucks.

I've got to hand it to this national chain. I'm usually the
first one in the door.

There always seem to be interesting people to observe, both in
front of and behind the counter. I'll also check out the compact
discs and DVDs, and often buy one or two, along with a
non-coffee drink and The New York Times.

Hooking not only coffee fans, but also those outside the target
market undoubtedly is how Starbucks has grown from a shoestring
operation in Seattle to a worldwide phenomenon that today has 35
million customers and stores in 37 countries.

In Tulsa, Starbucks has become ubiquitous since establishing
its first free-standing store at Utica Square in 2002. You don't
have to go far to find its distinctive logo.

A new book by Joseph Michelli analyzes the chain's success. "The
Starbucks Experience: Five Principles for Turning Ordinary Into
Extraordinary" (McGraw Hill, $21.95) also outlines how
these winning strategies can be applied at other companies.
Instrumental in building a business where few customers blink at
a $4 cup of coffee is the cultivation of a unique corporate
culture.

I've always been fascinated by companies, such as Southwest
Airlines, where employees seem to be almost excessively happy to
be at work. Although it's a rare thing, Starbucks has figured it
out, too.

Michelli explains that the coffee company puts a lot of effort
into making employees feel empowered. They are encouraged to
make suggestions, design improvements for their stores and even
go outside the box.

An example of the latter is an idea from one employee, a former
music store owner, to program song playlists for stores. The
next step was introducing unique compilation CDs for sale at
Starbucks.

Soon, the chain was partnering with major artists such as Elton
John and the Rolling Stones to sell special CDs available
nowhere else, and also helping launch new artists such as
Antigone Rising and Sonya Kitchell.

Getting employees to feel that Starbucks is their company, not
just a place to work, is what drives most of the chain's five
principles -- the secrets that Michelli says almost any business
can learn from:

Make it your own. Employees are encouraged to
connect with customers and elevate interactions.

Specifically, Starbucks gives each worker -- or partner, a term
the company prefers -- the "Green Apron Book," a pamphlet that
fits into their apron pocket.

In it, Starbucks reminds its partners to be welcoming, genuine,
considerate, knowledgeable and involved.

Obvious, maybe, but Starbucks makes it a point for its
employees to carry those words with them every day.

Everything matters. While the company takes
heroic measures to make sure each cup of coffee is of the
highest quality, its attention to detail goes far beyond that.
Everything from stocking the store to cleaning up crumbs is
scrutinized.

To make sure both the big things and little things are attended
to, Starbucks invests heavily in employee training.

Managers and workers are drilled on both positive and negative
real-world case studies. This gives them the tools they need to
anticipate situations in the field.

Surprise and delight. Consumers can become so
blasé about even the best products that sellers need to add the
occasional unexpected twist or extra value, Starbucks believes.

As a result, the chain sometimes does things like give away
free ice cream, unadvertised, to delight customers.

Consumers today, Starbucks contends, are looking for the "prize
in the Cracker Jacks." Offering that surprise regularly helps
build loyalty.

Embrace resistance. Whether it's a customer
complaint, or a slam by a national columnist, Starbucks tries to
respond positively, not defensively.

For example, when Starbucks entered China, there was a media
backlash about the arrival of the capitalistic operation.

Instead of panicking, Starbucks officials listened to local
officials and customers and made adjustments. Stores were
enlarged to meet the desire for more room, especially since the
Chinese preferred to drink their beverages there rather than get
them to go.

Within a few years, Starbucks had turned the corner and now is
viewed as a prestige brand by many Chinese, Michelli notes.

Leave your mark. Starbucks wants local
managers and employees to get involved in their communities, and
at the corporate level has sought to support a number of causes,
particularly those involving the environment.

The company also believes in following up on commitments it
makes in a market. In China, for example, it recently donated $5
million to support educational efforts.

Overall, Starbucks' leaders admit the chain still is far from
perfect. You might occasionally get a disappointing cup of
coffee or be served by a cranky partner. But, in my experience,
that's amazingly rare.

Starbucks, it seems, has accomplished the tough feat of both
building a hugely profitable business and also putting just as
much thought into motivating its work force and aiding good
causes.

That's a pretty strong brew.

Review of the WeekThe Starbucks ExperienceJoseph A. Michelli, PhD

Turning the Ordinary into Extraordinary

After
two years of access to the inner workings of the coffee-retailer
behemoth, Joseph Michelli wrote The Starbucks Experience in
an effort to explain the company's runaway success. From its
establishment in Seattle in 1971 as a single-location coffee shop,
Starbucks now has more than 11,500 non-franchised locations
worldwide, annual sales of more than $600 million and has been rated
as one of the best Fortune 100 companies to work for. Since 1992,
its stock has grown a staggering 5,000 percent.

How has Starbucks prospered based on the supposedly absurd idea
of a $3 cup of coffee? By having a progressive corporate
culture, says Michelli, and passing its values to all employees
- "partners" as they are known in the company. Michelli says
that by using the same principles, almost any company can become
more successful.

Concentration on Basics

While part of Starbucks' success is drawn from extensions of
its core coffee business - retail sales, music, gift packs - the
lion's share comes from its creation of experience. This is true
not only for customers but, perhaps more importantly, for
Starbucks' partners (employees). Going beyond things such as
stock options and health insurance (provided even for
part-timers), Starbucks "consistently spends more on training
than it does on advertising," writes Michelli. Its program
includes product information, how to create good customer
relations, the basic principles of success and employee
empowerment strategies.

This philosophy has helped keep Starbucks' employee turnover
rate 120 percent below the quick-service restaurant industry
average. Partners are encouraged to have fun, get to know
customers' likes and dislikes and treat each other with respect.
Management sticks to the same tenets. Michelli quotes Starbucks
International President Martin Coles saying, "It's impossible to
ask our people to behave the same way if we're not willing to go
down that track ourselves." Michelli says that regardless of a
company's resources, all principals can treat employees in a way
that will inspire them to creativity and passion.

The Big Five

Michelli breaks down the Starbucks success formula into five
parts. Number one is "Make It Your Own." By virtue of their
stock options, partners consider themselves part owners of the
corporation and most try to meet the firm's mission and
priorities. In turn, the company makes it a point to encourage,
listen and respond to partners' suggestions and comments.
Additionally, partners are encouraged to find out customers'
needs and respond to them on as personal a level as feasible.
Partners are also urged to become involved in their communities,
another Starbucks passion.

The second principle is "Everything Matters" - strive for
consistency in quality and environment and pay constant
attention to detail. It also means never compromising quality,
making sure every partner in every location is knowledgeable and
friendly, and ensuring that every Starbucks location offers a
welcoming atmosphere that makes customers want to return.

Next is "Surprise and Delight," which Starbucks takes to new
levels. This principle might involve something as simple as
opening early for a customer waiting outside or as involved as
creating a city-wide coffee-tasting day, where Starbucks'
partners set up tables at train stations, offering commuters
free coffee - both examples Michelli provides.

The fourth principle, "Embrace Resistance," addresses how
Starbucks' partners are trained to turn negative feedback from
customers into opportunities to improve the business and
strengthen the relationship. All levels of management are asked
to commit to this. Similarly, stores are expected to always seek
options to seemingly "impossible" customer requests.

The last principle is "Leave Your Mark." This addresses the
company's commitment to not only community outreach, but to
environmental issues, positive change and fiscal responsibility.

Referring to his subtitle, Michelli concludes that any firm can
become more "extraordinary" by using these five Starbucks'
principles.

Why We Like This Book

In The Starbucks Experience, Michelli has produced
something more than the typical Fortune 500 company profile.
Through his use of personalized stories and quotes from present
and former Starbucks' partners, he creates a framework of the
Starbucks strategy useful enough for any business owner.

Interface: Joseph Michelli

An organizational psychologist interprets Starbucks’
brew of business acumen and customer-focused market approach.

By Kate Leahy, Associate Editor

It wasn’t only a coffee addiction that attracted organizational
psychologist and business consultant Joseph Michelli to the
coffee behemoth as the subject for "The Starbucks Experience:
5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary"
(McGraw-Hill, 2006). He also was taken by its management and
branding strategies. Michelli is co-author, with John Yokoyama,
of "When Fish Fly" (Hyperion, 2004), a study of workplace
dynamics at Seattle’s Pike Place Fish Market, and host of a
daily business radio program in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Q. Are there similarities between the Pike Place Fish
Market and a Starbucks store?

A. The similarity is the commitment to creating an experience.
At the Pike Place Fish Market, you buy fish and hand them money,
but that’s not what it’s all about. It’s about watching
[vendors] throw fish and getting the customers involved. People
come there to watch the show and buy fish in the process. The
Starbucks experience is more about affordable luxury, being in a
homey environment. You walk in and it just feels like the living
room of the community.

Q. What inspired you to write this book?

A. A couple of things. I hated coffee as a kid. My uncle brewed
it every morning when I would work on his dairy farm and I would
load it up with as much cream and milk as I could just to
survive. I hated the taste. I never drank it as an adult. And
then, all of a sudden, for some reason, I decided to check out
what was going on at Starbucks. I didn’t like coffee and wanted
to know why people were into it. Then I became a two-latte-a-day
guy. I looked at my own self and thought how did this happen?
Why did I become a consumer of a product that I originally
didn’t like?

Q. What was this company doing better than others?

A. First off, they gave an outsider access, which is pretty
unusual. Which was a starting point. And then once I got in I
realized that the brand loyalty that people had with Starbucks
was not driven by advertising but it was driven by the personal
experiences people were having with the brand. Something was
going on that people would come back 18 times a month. It was
more than caffeine. What I saw when it went right—and it didn’t
always go right—was that a customer walked into a Starbucks unit
and they felt good. It was part of their routine. They felt like
this was a special experience; that they were treating
themselves to something nice.

Q. So brand recognition doesn’t come through
advertising. It comes through day-to-day interaction.

A. That’s right. And about 20% of the customers actually sit
down and have conversations over a cup of coffee. There is a
minister who doesn’t even have a church; he just works out of a
Starbucks. We found people who met each other in Starbucks and
went on to get married. These stories really reverberated with
me. You know it’s happening in all kinds of businesses and good
restaurants throughout the world. But we need to be reminded
that this is coffee. We’re talking about an ordinary product
that they created an experience around and revolutionized an
industry. If we just remind ourselves of the simple things, we
can revolutionize a moment with a customer, our store, or our
business.

Q. Was this something that really surprised you about
Starbucks?

A. I was surprised by how personal the brand is for people.
When we solicited stories from consumers, Starbucks was beloved
to a lot of customers. Now, there’s a whole bunch of people who
don’t like them, but the regular customers don’t just like
Starbucks, they really feel warmly towards the company. Part of
that is that they attract the right employees because of their
benefits. They pay above minimum wage and [provide] healthcare.
If you treat your employees with compassion, then I think it
transfers out to the customer experience too.

Q. You write about Starbucks marketing itself to its
employees. How do they do this effectively?

A. They have a program called Make Your Mark. Let’s say you’re
an employee at Starbucks and you want to go read at your kid’s
school. You get it approved by Starbucks and they will donate
the salary equivalent for your time to the organization where
you volunteer. There are large companies that do some great
corporate volunteering, but when you support the employees’
personal involvement, it makes a difference.

Q. How has Starbucks influenced the foodservice
industry as a whole?

A. I think it has raised the bar. But let’s talk about the
downside. The mom-and-pops versus Starbucks. What I’ve been able
to determine is that, clearly, some mom-and-pop operators closed
as a result of Starbucks coming to town. But the absolute number
of independents hasn’t decreased. You increase awareness of the
product and you actually increase the market for the product. It
has forced niching and made independent operators better at
branding themselves.

In terms of salaries, a lot of communities are looking for
Starbucks to come in. By doing so, it pushes other foodservice
operators in the area to think about their price point for
entry-level employees.

Q. It seems that employees give back to Starbucks, even
creating new drinks. How is this encouraged?

A. They’ve taught their front-line leadership to listen to
ideas. If they get ideas that are interesting, they can
test-market them in a small number of stores to determine
viability. I talked to a guy in Japan who started making
hand-cut gelatin cubes and putting them in Frappuccinos. And
people loved it. Clearly the R&D had to be done later, but they
could play with it in a very limited scope. So why not try a
new-product offering if you’re a solo restaurant? Take a chance.
And if it doesn’t work, what are you out? Not much.

Q. What can chain restaurants looking to operate
outside the United States learn from Starbucks’ global
expansion?

A. They invest in goodwill in the communities. There is a lot
of skepticism about global expansion, that American QSRs see the
incredible number of people but really don’t care about those
people. In China, which is where Starbucks is looking for its
second-largest market outside of the United States, the company
is doing really well.

Chinese President Hu Jintao quipped that if he weren’t doing
his job, he would want to be a regular at Starbucks. The company
started investing in various social programs and because of that
it got support. There was a goodwill feeling that this was about
creating affordable luxury in a country where more and more
people are becoming moderately affluent.

Q. Certainly Starbucks has its critics. What has it
done right in responding to criticism?

A. They know when to fold them. When they have done something
wrong, they apologize fairly swiftly and take responsibility.
There have been exceptions to that. After 9/11, one store near
the former World Trade Center sold water to firefighters. And
those sales overshadowed a lot of the free giving that many
other stores did. Starbucks didn’t do a great job handling the
complaints. But they took responsibility. They admitted that
they were wrong. Also, they’re not afraid to confront
misinformation about them.

Q. As Starbucks grows, it expands its customer base.
How does it do this without alienating its early adopters?

A. You have to be true to your core values. [Starbucks
Chairman] Howard Schultz in the early days said no to nonfat
milk because it doesn’t provide as flavorful a cup experience.
And he also said he would only sell high-quality beans that
weren’t [roasted with flavor enhancers]. As the company went on,
he realized that there were a lot of health-conscious customers
who wanted milk without fat. So he yielded to that. But he has
yet to yield on providing a vanilla-roast bean.

You have to decide when you have to modify your product
offerings, and if you do, will you alienate your traditional
market? You don’t want to bend to the point of breaking.

Q. What is the downside of Starbucks’ success?

A. They’re growing so fast that the ability to attract the kind
of employee who creates the consistent Starbucks experience is a
huge challenge. There still is plenty of uncharted territory.
There’s plenty of land for that. But I think the bigger
challenge is making sure that as it grows, the company doesn’t
just put up stores but creates experiential environments for
people with a staff who can generate that experience.

Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary
By Michelli, Joseph

BookPage Notable TitleFeaturing fresh-brewed, piping-hot leadership strategies
that have made Starbucks a robust company worldwide, this book
presents a rich mix of ideas for businesses that want to learn
how to apply the secret behind Starbucks' phenomenal vision,
creativity, and leadership within their company and in their
field.

Can Starbucks teach us anything?

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning
Ordinary into Extraordinary is a design standout:
The book's jacket mimics the to-go cup and cardboard sleeve
immediately recognizable to Starbucks devotees and detractors
alike. The cleverness continues inside, from coffee bean page
number icons to quotes set off in italics and tinted espresso
brown.

It's details like these--sometimes whimsical, always carefully
chosen--that contribute to Starbucks' success. As author Joseph
A. Michelli notes, there are 11,000 Starbucks stores in 37
countries, with five new stores opening each day. The company
also boasts a turnover rate that is reportedly 120 percent less
than the industry standard. From promoting stores as a “third
place” (first and second are home and work) for people to spend
a significant part of their lives, to artfully orchestrated
musical selections and extensive coffee selections, Starbucks
pays close attention to its customers and employees, and
innovates accordingly.

That's where the five principles come in. As Michelli explains,
Make It Your Own, Everything Matters, Surprise and Delight,
Embrace Resistance, and Leave Your Mark are mantras uttered
companywide, from the headquarters in Seattle to store locations
around the world. Michelli, who has a doctorate in
organizational psychology, seems to have had plenty of access to
the Starbucks corporate headquarters, as well as a number of
store locations, while researching this book. Certainly, it is
written from the point of view of a Starbucks aficionado:
Michelli composed his acknowledgements in “his” Starbucks in
Colorado; his author photo shows him holding a venti, a.k.a.
large, cup as he leans on a Starbucks counter; and Jim Alling,
president of Starbucks U.S. Business, contributed a foreword to
the book.

Not surprisingly, then, there is a certain degree of boosterism
in the book's tone, but Michelli provides facts and figures to
illustrate his five principles and his assessments regarding why
and how the company attracts and retains so many employees and
customers. Of course, Starbucks has its detractors--they're
covered in the “Embrace Resistance” chapter--but this book is
focused on what the company's doing right.

Michelli employs numerous anecdotes to illustrate the Starbucks
approach to employee empowerment and customer service--from the
barista who gave a free latte to a customer who'd dropped the
one he purchased (without having to ask a manager first!) to a
clever Tax Day promotion (free Calm tea for every customer).
However, if you're looking for specific steps for building or
improving a business, this may not be the book for you.
Michelli's principles are overarching theories and general
approaches to corporate culture and business practices, but
there is a lot to learn here regarding the positive, profitable
results of focusing on employee training and benefits, social
causes, and a culture that encourages customers to feel like
they're part of the Starbucks family--even if the relationship
initially is a transaction-based, caffeine-fueled one.

Several months after being named one of the "drunkest" cities
in the U.S. by Forbes-.com, Columbus is going ga-ga for the
story of a more sobering brew. According to bookseller Barnes &
Noble, Columbus has become one of the top markets for sales of
Joseph A. Michelli’s The Starbucks Experience.
The book, released last month, examines how the Seattle company
"has turned a cup of coffee into a billion-dollar business."
Starbucks has more than two dozen locations in central Ohio.

Malasia

Saturday December 16, 2006

Top reads for top peopleCompiled by THEAN LEE CHENG

BOOKS, when chosen carefully, can make great gifts. They
enrich, open up closed minds and immerse the reader in another
world other than his own. But before books can please, there
must be a pleasure found in reading.

All of us have that privilege; it is only whether we want to
make time to nurture it. Because reading takes up so much time,
it tends to compete with other seemingly more interesting
pursuits.

Depending on style, language and other dynamics, there will be
certain titles and authors who will appeal to us. The onus is on
us to find the time to sate that need within us, for he who
reads is richer for it.

In the season’s spirit of giving, here is a selection of
hardcover books, ...

Michelli interviews Starbuck’s leadership and pinpoints five
principles driving the chain’s success: Make it your own,
constantly look for ways to add customers, increase efficiency,
sell more to existing customers, and generate breakthrough
products and service. A rich mix of ideas for businesses that
want to learn about Starbucks’ phenomenal vision, creativity,
and leadership within their company and in their field....

Quick— what's the first thing you think of when someone says
the word "Starbucks" Coffee? A comfortable place to meet? The
color green? A highly successful global business?

Have you thought about Starbucks being an example to follow,
not only in business, but in normal life?

This concept was brought to my attention a few months back. I
stopped by the local Starbucks and was standing in line when I
noticed a magnet to the left of the sales counter that said, “Be
welcoming; offer everyone a sense of belonging.” Although it was
intended for the partners (employees), I asked Sarah, the store
manager, about it. She explained that the magnet encapsulated
one aspect of the company’s business philosophy. Then she went
to the back of the store and returned with a small booklet.
Known to Starbucks partners as The Green Apron Book,
it was an employee manual in miniature. After reading it that
afternoon, what impressed me the most was the absence of rules.
In their place were suggestions, goals, and the empowerment to
make every customer’s experience a memorable one. It was at that
moment that I realized the significance of Starbucks’
philosophy—not only for business, but for life in general.

Not everyone has access to The Green Apron Book,
but Joseph Michelli’s book The Starbucks Experience
is an excellent alternative. In it, the author shares five
distinct principles that, if implemented, can transform a
company (or an individual) from the inside out.

Since Starbucks is not a franchised company, it is able to
create a predictable experience for the customer. Part of this
lies in the store layout, the coffee drinks, the music, and the
people working there. In fact, the people are so critical to the
business philosophy that the company treats them incredibly well
(health benefits for those working over 20 hour/week, for
starters). In turn, they work hard, are knowledgeable about
their main product (coffee), and will sometimes go to great
lengths to make a customer’s experience memorable.

To the people of Starbucks, everything matters—from the farmers
growing the coffee beans used to the environmental impact of
using paper cups and sleeves. Complaints and criticisms are
addressed head-on, responsibility for errors is taken, and
opportunities to learn and improve as a company are seized.
Sometimes predictability is thrown out the window in favor of
surprises, such as free samples. As a result, the company and
its store partners are able to leave a positive impression on
the communities they are in, despite Starbucks’ nearly
ubiquitous presence.

In addition to business concepts and principles, Michelli
provides numerous real-life examples of how the Starbucks
philosophy works. These stories are well worth the price of the
book. From baristas devising a unique way to serve drinks at
their flagship location in Seattle to a training method used to
help partners create the Starbucks experience for customers
(it’s a game), the Starbucks way is shown to be both distinctive
and effective. Michelli includes both successes and failures,
providing a refreshing change of pace as well as proof that the
largest coffee company in the world sometimes makes mistakes.

Although The Starbucks Experience is
geared for businesses, its ideas can also be powerful for the
individual desiring to make a difference in life. One of the
central tenets of the Starbucks way is relationship building.
Anyone can add coffee grounds to water and call it a drink. But
the relationship that is built between barista and customer,
over time, can transcend coffee and pastries. Likewise, humanity
was not meant to live in a vacuum or on a deserted island. We
crave relationships and will acquire them as best we know how.
This is only natural, considering that God created people in
order to be in an active relationship with them. Perhaps
churches and other business organizations should take a good
look at the value of relationships to Starbucks, because they’re
obviously heading in the right direction.

I can think of no better example than one Halloween when I
stopped by a Starbucks on the way home. The cashier addressed me
by the character’s name I was dressed up as; the barista did the
same when the drink was ready. That cup (with “Mr. Wonka”
written on it) remains on my desk as a reminder of the
importance of relationships and turning an ordinary experience
into an extraordinary one.

Joseph Michelli has done us a valuable service by writing
The Starbucks Experience. You would be well-advised to
order your favorite coffee drink and read the book for yourself.

BOOK REVIEW BY John C. Maxwell (author of great
leadership books such as "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of
Leadership", "The 360 Degree Leader", "Developing
the Leader Within You", "The Difference Maker", "The
17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork", "Leadership
101","Winning with People", "The Choice is Yours"
and so many more.)

Aside from the advent of the information age, in the past 20
years, perhaps no cultural phenomenon has gripped society like
Starbucks coffee. From a smattering of Ma and Pa shops spread
thinly across the country in the 1980s, the coffee industry has
been transformed by the Starbucks juggernaut to the point where
Starbucks stores adorn street corners across the globe.

How did Starbucks grow from a small business in the Seattle
area to one of the best recognized brands in the world? How did
Starbucks capture the loyalty of customers who visit an average
of 18 times per month? What accounts for the demand enabling
Starbucks to open five stores per day, every day of the year?
How did Starbucks convince coffee drinkers to abandon their
usual routine and pay prices six or eight times higher for
specialty coffee blends?

In his recent release, The Starbucks Experience,
Joseph A. Michelli uncovers the management principles guiding
the exponential growth and wild popularity of the Starbucks
brand. The book is the culmination of two years of research
during which Michelli immersed himself in the stories of
Starbucks. As part of his research, Michelli extensively
interviewed Starbucks personnel—from top executives to the
baristas making the beverages. He listened to customers describe
their affinity for Starbucks, studied the company’s business
model, and even visited one of its coffee farms in Costa Rica.

Even before opening the book, its appearance gives the reader
an impression that Michelli is well-versed in the ins and outs
of the corporate coffee giant. The jacket of the book smartly
resembles a cup of coffee from Starbucks. The black and green
lettering of the title sits upon a white background, and an
imitation cardboard sleeve encircles the middle of the cover,
prominently displaying the Starbucks logo. Even the look and
feel of the pages is very “Starbucks.”

What makes The Starbucks Experience come alive are the
stories of how the company has positively connected with its
clientele. From baristas caring for an injured American in Kuala
Lumpur, to partners helping a widow cope with the loss of her
husband, to patrons assisting an armed forces battalion in
Afghanistan piece together a makeshift Starbucks café, images of
the powerful connection of Starbucks abound.

As with any ubiquitous brand, Starbucks has been accused of
trampling on the little guy. Critics cite corporate greed when
claiming Starbucks is ruining the livelihoods of small business
owners. In perhaps the most instructive chapter of the book,
“Embracing Resistance,” Michelli blows apart the notion of
Starbucks as an uncaring mega-corporation. By considering the
environment, serving the community, and protecting the
well-being of its partners, Starbucks strives to practice the
values it professes and win over its skeptics.

Michelli spreads examples of Starbucks’ corporate conscience
throughout the text. To encourage volunteerism, Starbucks
donates $10 per hour, up to $1,000 per project, to qualifying
organizations where a Starbucks employee volunteers. To shield
coffee workers from exploitation, Starbucks pays over $1.25 more
than its competitors when buying coffee to ensure partnerships
that embrace Starbucks’ values of fairness and good employee
treatment. With respect to the environment, Starbucks has also
taken the initiative to reduce its carbon emission, use a higher
percentage of recycled materials, and increase its usage of
renewable wind energy.

If there is any criticism of the book, it’s Michelli’s focus on
the positives. He glosses over negative aspects in The
Starbucks Experience, and only briefly mentions the
company’s shortcomings. However, in doing so, he rightly
highlights the unique strengths of the brand and bypasses the
generic, unglamorous qualities held in common by Starbucks and
all worldwide businesses.

The Starbucks Experience is a bountiful collection of
innovative management philosophies. The book offers great
insights into Starbucks' remarkable ability to connect with
customers by offering consistent products and ambience, while
suiting every store to the strengths of its partners and the
flavor of its locality. Readers of LW will be able to extract
several ideas from The Starbucks Experience to apply in
their own places of employment.

Careful now, this book is extremely hotBy Ching M. Alano

The Philippine STAR

You’re probably one of a legion of Starbucks hounds around the
world. You’re probably one who can’t start – and end and go
through – a day without a shot of java. Now, that’s a whole
latte love. You’re probably one whose idea of heaven is a tall
glass of vanilla frappuccino with lotsa caramel drizzle. Well,
this one’s not about you. This book’s about the people (called
"partners," not attendants or waiters or storekeepers) on the
other side of the counter who hand you your Starbucks coffee,
served hot or cold, with the warmest and biggest smile ever,
rain or shine.

It’s a sip-by-sip account of how Starbucks grew from a small
store to a giant company with more than 10,000 locations
worldwide (in some places, there are Starbucks outlets located
across the street from each other).

Allow us to pour some facts about Starbucks:

In 1971, the first Starbucks was opened in Seattle, Washington
by three partners – English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history
teacher Zev Siegel, and writer Gordon Bowker (oh, well, where
there are two or three gathered together, there must be coffee).
It was called Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice. Before that,
there was a corner coffee shop which drew a horde of caffeine
addicts for its 50-cent cup – and free refills!

Writes Joseph Michelli, founder of Lessons for Success,
broadcaster and author of The Starbucks Experience – 5
Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary
(available at Powerbooks):

"For some of us, the morning was not complete without a visit
to the convenience store, where we poured our own black, murky
brew into a white foam cup. To kill the taste, we doused the
mixture with gobs of powdered cream and sugar, and stirred it
with a thin red plastic stick (which was supposed to double as a
straw). We would hand our change to an apathetic cashier who
performed the job just well enough to earn the minimum wage. It
was an unvarying and uninspired customer ritual and
transaction."

Until Starbucks came along and a new coffee culture was born.
Suddenly, coffee lovers discovered a whole new way to enjoy
coffee – with or without company. And a whole new coffee jargon
came to be: Tall, grande, and venti (instead of medium, large,
and extra large). Starbucks former CEO and current chairman
Howard Schultz spills the beans, "What would happen if you took
the quality coffee bean tradition of Starbucks and merged it
with the charm and romance of the European coffeehouse?" The
answer: Yes, Starbucks can – that is, transform a traditional
American coffee experience from the ordinary to the
extraordinary. But comes another question: Who would pay six or
eight times more for rich, exotic coffee blends when "ordinary"
is what a coffee drinker has always known? This was the brewing
controversy of the day. An article in Fortune magazine by Cora
Daniels notes, "The Starbucks story epitomizes ‘imagine that’ in
every sense. When the company went public ... it had just 165
stores clustered around Seattle and in neighboring states ...
skeptics ridiculed the idea of $3 coffee as a West Coast yuppie
fad."

As you and I know, it’s more than a yuppie fad. The sumptuous
figures tell the Starbucks story: Stores in over 37 countries;
35 million customer visits each week, with loyal patrons
typically returning 18 times a month. The Starbucks chairman
will probably be the first to say that the company owes much of
its success to its "partners," the people who create a special
experience for every single customer who walks into a Starbucks
store.

In his foreword to The Starbucks Experience, Starbucks
US Business president Jim Alling writes, "The Starbucks
Experience contains a robust blend of home-brewed ingenuity
and people-driven philosophies that have made Starbucks one of
the world’s ‘most admired’ companies, according to Fortune
magazine... " For behind a hot cup of Starbucks coffee is a
heartwarming tale or two. For instance, the book tells the story
of a customer, Lydia Moore from Oakland, California, who met the
love of her life – and future husband – at Starbucks. Lydia had
forged a special friendship with the Starbucks staff that when
she got married, she invited them to her wedding. The staff put
up the picture of the couple on the board and closely followed
their life together, cup after cup after cup of Starbucks
coffee. Sad to say, Lydia’s husband was one day diagnosed with
cancer. Through it all, the Starbucks partners were there, there
to bring Lydia’s husband his favorite Grande Drip and Hazelnut
Sticky Bun. Lydia was devastated when she lost her husband and
there to share in her loss were her Starbucks friends.

Indeed, unique is the experience that is Starbucks. Michelli
points out, "The Starbucks Experience reflects tenets
that are simple, yet not simplistic. They are results-oriented
and can be deceptively powerful when applied."

And the five principles are:

1) Make it your own.

2) Everything matters.

3) Surprise and delight.

4) Embrace resistance.

5) Leave your mark.

"They remind all of us –you, me, the janitor, and the CEO –
that we are responsible for unleashing a passion that ripples
outward from behind the scenes, through the customer experience,
and ultimately out into our communities. Let’s take a closer
look at each of these principles with an eye to how they work
inside Starbucks and how we can tap into their transformational
power."

Thanks for that hot tip, Mr. Michelli. Now, can you think of an
experience hotter than this? Make mine venti.

BOOK OFFERS INSIGHT ON BUSINESS
SMARTS, EVEN IF YOU DON’T KNOW BEANS ABOUT COFFEEBy ANDREW WINEKE THE GAZETTE

Starbucks Coffee’s greatest accomplishment may not be its
phenomenal growth or its success in selling $4 double talls to
an adoring and caffeine-addicted public. The true Starbucks miracle is that the company did all that
while pushing a roast that’s much too bitter for many coffee
drinkers.

Starbucks roasts to the “third pop of the bean,” he explains,
while milder brews, such as the Starbucksowned Seattle’s Best
Coffee, roast only to the second pop. But it’s all part of the
Starbucks magic, he argues.

“I drank Sanka when I was a kid,” Michelli said. “Those
coffees have very, very little taste. We were used to stale
coffee and now (with Starbucks), we’re going up to the richest
roast.”

What his book is about, Michelli says, is explaining that the
business smarts that made Starbucks a household name could help
companies that don’t know a hill of beans about coffee.

“They took the most ordinary product, coffee, which you used
to get for 50 cents at your convenience store” and built a
global empire, Michelli said.

That Starbucks pixie dust is in demand these days: Steve
Barrett, associate creative director for the Starbucks Global
Communications Group, is speaking today to a sold-out crowd at
the monthly Pikes Peak Advertising Federation luncheon. And
Michelli’s book reached No. 13 last week on the Wall Street
Journal’s business best-sellers list.

For Michelli, the idea for the book came in Washington state,
where he was working on a book about the famous fish throwers in
Seattle’s Pike Place Market.

The very first Starbucks location is in the market, and every
time Michelli walked by, he thought about how Starbucks
transformed a cheap, bitter beverage into a lifestyle. After talking to baristas, bean growers, agronomists and
executives, Michelli distilled what he learned about the company
into “The Starbucks Experience.”

OK, sure Starbucks has turned a 50-cent beverage into a
custom-crafted $3 work of art — and yes, the company manages to
sell CDs and books alongside beans and coffee mugs, but what can
a widget maker really learn from it?

“It’s really not about coffee,” Michelli said.

If a company can create the right atmosphere for its customers
and employees, success naturally follows. It’s as true for
computers or cars as it is for coffee, he says.

“From the moment you walk in the door (of my business), I have
an opportunity to change your life,” Michelli said.

He offers a small example: “Starbucks could save millions of
dollars if they went from double-ply toilet paper to single-ply,
but that wouldn’t be the Starbucks experience.”

That example isn’t in the book, but it could fall under
Michelli’s principle No. 1: “Make it your own,” or under
principle No. 3: “Surprise and delight.” Customers are no doubt
pleased it doesn’t fit into principle No. 5: “Leave your mark.”

Coffee is merely the medium through which Starbucks delivers
an experience, Michelli says, including the CDs, the books, the
magazines, the scones and the cushy chairs from which to watch
the brew perk.

Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz sums up the secret this way:
“We’re not a coffee company serving people; we’re a people
company serving coffee.”

And, not surprisingly, a big part of being a people company is
the people who work there. Michelli notes in the book that
Starbucks is the rare company that spends more on training than
it does on advertising, and that it does little things such as
encourage even its accountants and office drones to become
experts in roasts and things like the third pop of the bean —
whatever that actually means.

The people who design the stores also spend time behind the
counters, and the people who run the counters get a say in
designing the stores.

“What is the optimal customer experience you can have for your
internal customers, your employees?” Michelli asked. “What if
everything went right in how we respected them every day?”

GUEST APPEARANCE: On the Mike Boyle
Restaurant Show at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 1 on Adelphia Channel 2. The
show repeats at 7 p.m. Dec. 1 and 4:30 p.m. Dec. 2.

Book Review:

The Starbucks Experience:

5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into
Extraordinary

Cherie BurbachNovember 20, 2006

The Starbucks Experience attempts to explain the
reason behind Starbucks’ success using customer anecdotes,
insider stories, and the occasional business strategy thrown in
for good measure. The book is a fascinating study;
stressing the very unique mindset this organization has over
most of the businesses in our market today. For example, they
offer benefits for part-time employees working as little as 20
hours a week, including adoption assistance, stock options, and
health insurance. They build stores in such close proximity that
they are oftentimes competing directly with one another. And
they sell a product that until a few years ago most of us just
brewed at home or paid a few cents at a gas station for on our
way to work.

To put perspective on Starbucks’ success, author Joseph
Michelli states, “if you had “invested $10,000 in the Starbucks
IPO on the Nasdaq in 1992, your investment would be worth
approximately $650,000 today.” If that weren’t enough Michelli
tells us “Starbucks opens five (5) new stores every day – 365
days a year.” And yet through all this, they have maintained
their level of quality – oftentimes a tough thing to do when a
company expands at such a level.

The Starbucks Experience reads more like an
autobiography than it does a business case study, and that alone
should give you some insight into just how unique an
organization Starbucks is. The book outlines five “experiences”
that Starbucks uses to drive their company. Note that these
principles are vague in description, making them easy to apply
to any aspect of the company – from management through R&D to
customer service. They are:

1.Make it your own

2.Everything matters

3.Surprise and delight

4.Embrace resistance

5.Leave your mark

Each one of these principles are given more attention, for
example under the first principle of “Make it your own” the
company further lists “be welcoming, be genuine, be considerate,
be knowledgeable, and be involved” and stresses that these
aren’t just for the retail level folks but for every area of the
company. At the end of each principle is a “create your own
experience” segment which rephrases the principle in a way
businesses can apply to their own brands, and an “ideas to sip
on” thought that gives an overview of the chapter.

Still, with all of these insights there is no surefire list to
follow, no defined strategies. All in all The Starbucks
Experience serves more to add to the mystique of Starbucks’
success than it does to define it in a way other organizations
can emulate. However, the author’s eighteen-month study of the
chain does provide enough information to at least get you
inspired and looking at your business an entirely different way.

The
Associated Press State & Local Wire

BYLINE: By DOUG
ESSER, Associated Press Writer

Every successful company must have
a business book. "The Starbucks Experience: 5
Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary," by
Joseph A.
Michelli looks at how a company
changed the perception of a cup of coffee and built a global
corporation. It's a tall order, but Michelli delivers in grande
style with chapters on each principle: 1. Make it your own, 2.
Everything matters, 3. Surprise and delight, 4. Embrace
resistance, 5. Leave your mark. Michelli is a business
consultant and speaker from Colorado who had the cooperation of
the management in Seattle in writing the book. Jim Alling,
president, U.S. business, wrote the foreward and says Michelli hit on the right blend
of conventional business acumen and storytelling.
(McGraw-Hill, New York, 208 pages, hardback, $21.95)

Commentary: Local authors are examples of what's
good about Colorado Springs

BYLINE: Lon Matejczyk

Despite some recent negative publicity and some crazy ballot
initiatives that thankfully were rejected by the voters, let's
not forget that we live in arguably the best city in the United
States. We have two local people who have published books that
are well worth your time.

Joseph Michelli's "The
Starbuck's Experience," made the Wall Street
Journal's best-seller list, coming in at No. 13, and beating out
our own columnist Jeffrey Gitomer's "Little Red Book of
Selling," which is No. 15. Steve Bigari, who owns several
McDonald's franchises and Mr. Biggs, also has a new book, "The
Box You Got. "

I have not read these books all
the way though - and finding the time to start doing book
reviews won't be happening anytime soon - but I wanted you to
know about these books by local people. Don't forget that there
are plenty of good things going on and good people in our city.

Michelli's
introduction is titled "Taking you and your business to the
extraordinary. " Bigari's introduction goes like this: "Author's
warning: Reading this book will create feelings of passion and a
desire to change your life. This author strongly encourages, but
takes no responsibility for, your action. " Bigari believes that
"everybody is a leader" and tells us to "throw out the idealized
notion of leadership" because we're all leaders. It took Bigari
four-and-a-half months to write the book. I asked him what our
local business community could learn from reading it. He
responded: "People always tell me, 'Think outside the box. '
That's wrong. Real success depends on what you do with the box
you got - your circumstances of your life right where you are.
"In my book, I present 'Bigg Ideas' that will help you get
inspired, instigate change and innovate in your life. You can
transform the world you live in - and be the kind of visionary
leader who helps your co-workers, family and friends apply these
ideas to their own lives. "

Michelli
received cooperation from Starbuck's senior management on
his project. He writes, "While at first I was amazed by the
grace, openness, and free rein they gave me, I later came to
realize how much of their willingness to grant me access was at
the core of their success model. " Both of these local authors
deserve the Springs business community's support. So go buy
their books. Michelli's
is available at most bookstores, and Bigari's is available at
www.theboxyougot.com. We can learn from them.

Article Written by Joseph for the November 2006 print edition
of the magazine entitled "The Starbucks Experience: From
Ordinary to Extraordinary"

I invite you to discover a rich mix of ideas that will help you
apply the Starbucks vision, creativity and leadership practices
to your company.......

Jacksonville's largest entertainment weekly

The Starbucks Experience: Five Principles for Turning
Ordinary into Extraordinary by Joseph Michelli is the
newest Starbucks informed business success book. An easy, high
energy read, it freshens a formulaic read by injecting a little
coffee panache.

Springs author writes on StarbucksNovember 3, 2006 by Kathryn Mayer

Looking for success in business? Take a few pointers from
the coffee giant that's on almost every corner.

After all, with almost 12,000 stores worldwide and five new
ones opening every day, Starbucks must be doing something right.

Although he writes about leadership strategies, Michelli, who
owns training and consulting firm Lessons for Success in
Colorado Springs, says anyone "from a business owner to a coffee
lover" can appreciate his book.

In it, he explores five principles:

Make it your own, explaining that Starbucks has tremendous
customer service.

Everything matters, saying they pay attention to every
detail.

Surprise and delight, looking for ways to "surprise and
engage customers in a process of delivery."

Embrace resistance, learning to benefit from criticism.

Leave your mark, acting socially conscientious by way of
philanthropy and gift giving.

Michelli says that besides pleasing customers by providing a
relaxing environment, and employees with benefits and stock
options, Starbucks does the unthinkable -- it listens.

Innovations such as frappuccinos and getting involved in the
music business were generated by ideas suggested by customers
and employees.

And they are never afraid to take risks, he said.

Now, Starbucks is distributing books, CDs and DVDs.

"Their footprint can only get bigger," Michelli says.

"The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning
Ordinary into Extraordinary," by Joseph A. Michelli looks
at how a company changed the perception of a cup of coffee and
built a global corporation.

Michelli is a business consultant and speaker from Colorado
who had the cooperation of the management in Seattle in writing
the book. Jim Alling, president, U.S. business, wrote the
foreward and says Michelli hit on the right blend of
conventional business acumen and storytelling.

(McGraw-Hill, New York, 208 pages,
hardback, $21.95)

GOOD GRIEF! Here's a company that's
using its beanSentinel Staff | Posted October 3,
2006

How many leadership principles does it take to brew a latte?

We're not sure, but the answer might be hidden in The Starbucks
Experience, a book that promises "fresh-brewed, piping-hot
leadership strategies that have made Starbucks a robust company
worldwide."

Author Joseph A. Michelli delves into the company philosophy
based on five principles, and offers up Zen-like nuggets of
wisdom.

Take the advice to "Make It Your Own": "We are not in the
coffee business serving people," says Starbucks Chairman Howard
Schultz, "we are in the people business serving coffee."

If you think about it, that's deeper than a Venti.

But a book this big on ideas might not help with the small
stuff. Another of its principles is "Everything Matters."

OK, that narrows it down a bit.

Then again, it's coming from a company that opens new stores at
a rate of five a day, or one every five hours. So maybe there's
something to it.

Hello in BubbleNation. I'm Carl, and I just have to tell you
about this company I recently became acquainted with. It's call
Starbucks. Have you heard about it? I've been going to my local
Starbucks for about 2 weeks now, and wow, it's more awesome than
West Wing marathons on the Bravo channel. I mean, there's great
coffee drinks, couches, atmosphere, and yummies, but what I love
most is that it seems like this little store is some sort of
gathering place. Like, I've seen one business dude already have
business meetings there. And this one college girl, she not only
goes there everyday to study, but it's also where she tutors
other people. It's an all around amazing experience.

Hey everyone, it's in BubbleGuy. Sorry about my friend. He made
a chariot out of an old rusty claw foot tub and had his wife
lower him into that hole. He fell in and has been in there for 5
years. We thought he was gone, but thank Irkle he made it out
OK. So let's talk about this book. We've heard the story of
Starbucks over and over again from journalists and Seth Godin
and even in other books that use the Bucks as an example of
greatness. But never has there been a book where a writer has
been given such unfettered access to the Starbucks Experience
and how it's run. Joseph Michelli was given that access.

Michelli main goal with the book is not to simply tell the
Starbucks story, it's to extract everything that makes the
company so great and spin those characteristics into a valuable
learning tool for everyone else - YOU and me. He doesn't simply
say, "Well Starbucks is great because they reach out to the
community while creating a community." Nope, Joseph uses lessons
from the coffee giant to tell us HOW to do it. He tells us just
HOW TO LISTEN to individual employees and customers.

With great stories and anecdotes, Michelli has made learning
great business lessons for modern times a real joy with The
Starbucks Experience. You get a little history, you get the
stories, you get the knowledge, and you get the strategies. I
can't imagine, even if you don't prefer Starbucks as your local
caffeine supply, why any business person serious about success
in this day and age would not want to read this book.

The Extra Offer:So not only am I giving away 25 copies of this book (Carl will
help me ship them), Joseph Michelli has agreed to partake in a
teleconference with all the winners. That's pretty awesome cuz
this dude can talk. Aside from writing this book and founding a
consulting and training firm called Lessons for Success, he also
hosts his own radio show...sorry, AWARD WINNING daily radio show
on KVOR-AM in Colorado. Should be fun.

Book details Starbucks' five core principles for
successThursday October 12, 2006

When Starbucks set out to create a customer experience that
nurtures loyalty - not only to the product but to the brand
itself - the company drew up five core business principles that
brought about its success, according to the new book, 'The
Starbucks Experience', by Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D.

In the book, The Starbucks Experience - 5 Principles for
Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary(McGraw-Hill
Industry), Michelli explores the coffee seller's rich mix
of ideas and techniques that define the Starbucks vision and
creativity.

The Starbucks name is now synonymous with coffee. Some 40
million customers visit a Starbucks location on a weekly basis,
and the most loyal customers visit an average of 18 times per
month. Moreover, the company's employee turnover rate is 250%
below the industry average. The company now opens an average of
5 new locations every day of the year. This, Michelli argues,
suggests that Starbucks is doing something right. Very right.

The right combinationThe book shows how employee motivation, excellent customer
service and satisfaction, and community involvement all go
together to build a great company.

"Whether you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a part-time
entry-level worker, a middle manager, or the owner of a small
business, Starbucks' five core business principles can be
applied to your career, workplace, and company," explained
Michelli.

The five principlesIn summary, the five principles used by Starbucks include:

Make it your ownStarbucks "partners" (employees) think about customer service
in a way that allows each of them to connect with their
customers on a very personal level. According to Starbucks
chairman, Howard Schultz, "We are not in the coffee business
serving people; we are in the people business serving coffee."

Everything mattersPaying attention to absolutely every detail gives Starbucks a
competitive advantage because it builds loyalty among patrons.
"Managers have to constantly put themselves in the shoes of
their customers, seeing everything from the other side of the
counter," explained Michelli.

Surprise and delightStarbucks insists that it is critical to deliver consistent
product and service to delight customers. But on top of
consistent quality, Starbucks partners look for ways to surprise
and engage consumers in a process of discovery. In an example of
the importance of surprise, Starbucks gave out free cups of Calm tea on 15th April - in anticipation that their
customers would be frazzled by their tax deadline.

Embrace resistanceStarbucks encounters many forms of resistance from
communities, international organisations and, at times,
customers. Both at the leadership and front line levels,
Starbucks has benefited from criticism and used it to become
stronger and better able to meet the needs of those who share
their input.

Leave your markPeople want to do business with and work for companies that
are socially conscientious. In addition to its corporate
philanthropy and grant-giving programme, Starbucks encourages
employees to be more involved in their community, by matching
cash contributions in support of their local efforts.
Furthermore, Starbucks leadership makes business decisions in
accord with their own social values.

As seen in the phenomenal success of Starbuck’s Chairman Howard
Schultz’s book Pour Your Heart Into It, business readers want to
learn about what’s driving this international business success
story. But this book only shows one side of this amazing success
story. Really it’s all of the people at Starbucks—known as
“partners”—who continue to take this company to great heights
and who make going to Starbucks an actual “Experience” instead
of just getting a cup of Joe. In order to fully understand what
is driving Starbuck’s success and how they create this
Experience, business readers need to know what’s happening at
every level, from the C-Suite all the way down to the “customer
evangelists,” with all the coffee farmers and baristas in
between. And they also need to know how to apply this knowledge
to their own businesses.

Now, for the first time, an outsider has been given
unprecedented access to Starbucks personnel and resources.
Joseph Michelli has interviewed top Starbuck’s leadership,
including Schultz and CEO Jim Donald; traveled to Costa Rica to
meet with Dub Hay, senior VP of coffee; visited Starbucks
roasting plant in Kent, Washington; attending “Coffee Cuppings”
(tastings) in two of the three cupping rooms worldwide; and had
hundreds of conversations with Starbucks partners, regular
patrons, and more. through this remarkable access, Michelli has
pinpointed 5 principles driving the success of Starbucks, each
of which he attributes to the Starbuck’s partners.

The Starbucks experienceOctober 24, 2006

Dear Artist,

Recently I wrote a
letter about the similarity of running a business and being
an artist. As usual a whole bunch of artists agreed with me, and
a whole bunch of others told me I'd been drinking my turps. Then
yesterday I picked up a reading sample--that's book-talk for a
preview of an upcoming book. The Starbucks Experience, Five Principles for Turning Ordinary
into Extraordinaryby psychologist Joseph Michelli will
be out next month.

Michelli was granted unlimited access to the inside workings of
Starbucks. In case you didn't know, Starbucks is the biggest
chain of coffee shops in the world. There are now more than
11,000 outlets in 37 countries--five new ones start pouring
coffee every day. Howard Schultz, the founder, began in Seattle,
Washington in 1971 with one shop. If you'd invested $10,000 when
stock was first offered in 1992, you'd now have $650,000.
Starbucks is regularly voted one of the best run companies.
Starbucks has changed coffee culture from dullsville 50 cent
mugs of murky brew to $4.00 specialties like "quad, two-pump
vanilla, one-and-one-quarter sugar-free hazelnut, ristretto
latte, half soy, half nonfat, extra hot, with whip." Staff at
Starbucks are real friendly taking dough out of your pocket, and
customers love the custom treatment. Who would've thought? Even
Howard Schultz was surprised. His second big idea had been to
open another shop in Portland.

Michelli found the Starbucks culture to be an overflowing cup of
empowerment. All employees, from the top brass to the
20-hour-per-week "baristas" are offered a stake in the company.
But this is only part of what makes the company so different and
so successful. When I read the five principles I almost gagged:

I'm inviting you to take a look at those principles and see if
they don't apply every time you go into your studio and pick up
your tools. Think about those principles, and then let's meet at
Starbucks. It's just down the road.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "The Starbucks Experience reflects tenets that are simple,
yet not simplistic. They are results-oriented and can be
deceptively powerful when applied." (Joseph
Michelli)

Esoterica: Starbucks goes to a lot of trouble to train employees
to be both skilled in the culture and happy in their work.
Unlike most companies, Starbucks spends more on training than
advertising. Job satisfaction translates into an emotional
customer connection. For example, when "Surprise and delight"
happens during the making of something, the effect is
transferred down the line. In any creative endeavor, "How can I
delight myself?" is a most important question. It's hard for
some of us to believe, but more than one person has a stake in
the outcome of our work. "Double double, please."

I just started reading “The Starbucks Experience” and believe
this book will be extremely beneficial for church planters and
church leaders to learn some valuable insights from. One of the
aspects that they discuss is the type of real community that
Starbucks and its team has created - not just for eachother but
for us as well. As I read the first couple of chapters I
immediately thought about how many churches have never been able
to build a genuine community and how so many people have been
disconnected from “church”. Here is a quote from Howard Schultz;
pg.12:

“The success of Starbucks demonstrates that we have built an
emotional connection with our customers. We have a competitive
advantage over classic brands in that every day we touch and
interact with our customers directly. Our product is not sitting
on a supermarket shelf like a can of soda. Our people have done
a wonderful job of knowing your drink, your name, and your kids’
names”.

Starbucks knows that branding is ALL about the connection! Is
your church connecting with your audience? Do you touch and
interact with people daily? Are you sitting in the church
building or going into the community? There are a lot of
applications here and maybe we should take a page (or two) from
this book and learn from Starbucks so that we can build a better
church “experience” for the people we want to reach.

Fresh-brewed, piping-hot leadership strategies that have
made Starbucks a robust company worldwide

The Starbucks name is synonymous with coffee. Forty millions
customers visit each week and the most loyal customer visits
their Starbucks store 18 times per month. The Starbucks employee
turnover rate is 250 percent lower than the industry average.
From a single store to five new stores opening EVERY DAY (one
every 5 hours) 365 days per year – Starbucks must be doing
something right.

The Starbucks Experience shows readers how
employee motivation, excellent customer service and
satisfaction, and community involvement build a great company.
Joseph Michelli, Ph.D. has been given unique access to
Starbucks, offering readers an in-depth look at a company that
has re-written the conventional rules of management. Whether
you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a part-time entry-level
worker, a middle manager, or the owner of a small business,
Starbucks’ five core business principles can be applied to your
career, workplace, and company:

§ MAKE IT YOUR OWN Starbucks partners
(employees) think about customer service in a way that allows
each of them to connect with their customers on a personal
level. According to Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, “We
are not in the coffee business serving people; we are in the
people business serving coffee.”

§ EVERYTHING MATTERS Paying attention to
absolutely every detail gives Starbucks a competitive advantage
because it builds intense loyalty among patrons. “Managers
have to constantly put themselves in the shoes of their
customers, seeing everything from the other side of the
counter,” according to Michelli.

§ SURPRISE AND DELIGHT At Starbucks, it is
critical to deliver consistent product and service to delight
customers. But on top of consistent quality, Starbucks partners
look for ways to surprise and engage consumers in a process of
discovery. In an example of the importance of surprise,
Starbucks gave out free cups of “Calm” tea on April 15 in
anticipation that their customers would be frazzled by the tax
deadline.

§ EMBRACE RESISTANCE Starbucks receives many
forms of resistance from communities, international
organizations, and at times, customers. Both at the leadership
and front line levels, Starbucks has benefited from criticism
and utilized it to become stronger and better able to meet the
needs of those who share their input.

§ LEAVE YOUR MARK People want to do business
with and work for companies that are socially conscientious. In
addition to their corporate philanthropy and grant-giving,
Starbucks encourages its employees to be involved in their
communities; matching cash contributions in support of their
partners’ efforts. Furthermore, Starbucks leadership makes
business decisions in accord with their social values.

Few companies have rallied their employees to participate in a
corporate vision that creates a worldwide story of business
success. The Starbucks Experience
offers a rich mix of ideas for individuals that want to learn
how to apply the secrets behind Starbucks phenomenal vision,
creativity, and leadership. It’s the perfect business model for
anyone with a taste for success.

News Released: September 30, 2006

(PRLEAP.COM) “Readers will discover a rich mix of ideas and
techniques that will help them apply the Starbucks vision,
creativity, and leadership to their own careers, workplaces, and
companies. Michelli shares fascinating information…” – Library
Journal

Fresh-brewed, piping-hot leadership strategies that have made
Starbucks a robust company worldwide.

The Starbucks name is synonymous with coffee. Forty millions
customers visit each week and the most loyal customer visits
their Starbucks store 18 times per month. The Starbucks employee
turnover rate is 250 percent lower than the industry average.
From a single store to five new stores opening EVERY DAY (one
every 5 hours) 365 days per year – Starbucks must be doing
something right.

The Starbucks Experience shows readers how employee
motivation, excellent customer service and satisfaction, and
community involvement build a great company. Joseph Michelli,
Ph.D. has been given unique access to Starbucks, offering
readers an in-depth look at a company that has re-written the
conventional rules of management. Whether you’re the CEO of a
Fortune 500 company, a part-time entry-level worker, a middle
manager, or the owner of a small business, Starbucks’ five core
business principles can be applied to your career, workplace,
and company:

• MAKE IT YOUR OWN Starbucks partners (employees) think about
customer service in a way that allows each of them to connect
with their customers on a personal level. According to Starbucks
Chairman Howard Schultz, “We are not in the coffee business
serving people; we are in the people business serving coffee.”

• EVERYTHING MATTERS Paying attention to absolutely every
detail gives Starbucks a competitive advantage because it builds
intense loyalty among patrons. “Managers have to constantly put
themselves in the shoes of their customers, seeing everything
from the other side of the counter,” according to Michelli.

• SURPRISE AND DELIGHT At Starbucks, it is critical to deliver
consistent product and service to delight customers. But on top
of consistent quality, Starbucks partners look for ways to
surprise and engage consumers in a process of discovery. In an
example of the importance of surprise, Starbucks gave out free
cups of “Calm” tea on April 15 in anticipation that their
customers would be frazzled by the tax deadline.

• EMBRACE RESISTANCE Starbucks receives many forms of
resistance from communities, international organizations, and at
times, customers. Both at the leadership and front line levels,
Starbucks has benefited from criticism and utilized it to become
stronger and better able to meet the needs of those who share
their input.

• LEAVE YOUR MARK People want to do business with and work for
companies that are socially conscientious. In addition to their
corporate philanthropy and grant-giving, Starbucks encourages
its employees to be involved in their communities; matching cash
contributions in support of their partners’ efforts.
Furthermore, Starbucks leadership makes business decisions in
accord with their social values.

Few companies have rallied their employees to participate in a
corporate vision that creates a worldwide story of business
success. The Starbucks Experience offers a rich mix of ideas for
individuals that want to learn how to apply the secrets behind
Starbucks phenomenal vision, creativity, and leadership. It’s
the perfect business model for anyone with a taste for success.

THE STARBUCKS EXPERIENCE

5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary “Readers
will discover a rich mix of ideas and techniques that will help
them apply the Starbucks vision, creativity, and leadership to
their own careers, workplaces, and companies.

Horn tootin' time... I'm proud to have a
smart-sounding quote on page 11 of Joseph's book... I'm also
proud of the fact that a good chunk of the book is dedicated to
talking about the Starbucks "Green Apron Book"
- a pocket-sized partner (employee) guide developed to firmly
establish and communicate the language of customer service at
Starbucks.

Other Notable Publications available at:

Foreign Translation Rights

Rights Sold:

Arabic

Bulgarian

Chinese (Simplified Character Mandarin)- for sale mostly in
China

Chinese (Complex Character Mandarin) - for sale in Taiwan
and Hong Kong